New | Jackie Chan criticises economic cost of Occupy Central, calls on Hongkongers to ‘love the country’

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Jackie Chan speaks during a press conference which opened a Chinese Film Festival in Romania last month. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:47pm, 10 Oct 2014Updated: 5:40pm, 10 Oct 2014

Hong Kong’s famous and controversial action star Jackie Chan has waded into a debate that has split families and caused divisions across the city: the ongoing pro-democracy protests.

In a post on his Weibo account on Thursday, Chan called on everyone involved in the protests to “work together, return to reason, face the future, love the country, love our Hong Kong.”

“I read the news that economic losses in Hong Kong are up to 350 billion,” Chan wrote. “This makes me really anxious. I believe that all Hong Kong people love Hong Kong.”

He also quoted the lyric of the song recorded by him with singer Liu Yuanyuan in 2009 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China: “Can there be a prosperous home without a powerful country?”

Internet users in China praised Chan on Weibo, which has been heavily censored of all Occupy Central and “Umbrella Movement” content during the protests, for “daring to speak out”.

While Chan’s remarks were nowhere near as critical as China’s state media coverage of the protests, which previously called events the “the opposite of democracy”, they have been framed as being in opposition to the protests, which are set to continue after the Hong Kong government on Thursday evening called off scheduled talks with student leaders scheduled for Friday.